by Vidisha Chandna Dua
Rating: ***
Life’s Not Over Yet is set in India and introduces us to Trisha; who, on the advice of her friend, has decided to take some time away from her normal life to deal with personal issues. She takes a room in a house situated in a beautiful hill station, Chail. However, her friend has not been entirely honest and the owner of the property, Dev, is not especially keen to have a lodger…
Life’s Not Over is a sweetly endearing novella that proves you are never too old to begin again or embark on a new relationship. Trisha is an introspective and clearly quite fragile character whose reasons for wanting a break are unclear until the end of the book. I thought she was affectionately portrayed by Vidisha although at times she could be a little frustrating. Dev was interesting; veering between mild arrogance and laidback humility. The chemistry between him and Trisha was nicely evident from the beginning and there were enough little twists in the narrative to keep the reader guessing. Technically, the tenses occasionally flicker between past/present and it would have been nice to have a touch more personal definition in both Dev and Trisha’s dialogue.
It’s clear that Vidisha has a passion for story-telling and I look forward to reading her further novellas to discover where her imagination takes both herself as a writer and us as readers. Recommended.
Buy from: